Tips and instructions
Freeze bread in slices
Slice the bread and freeze it to avoid food loss from bread. Freeze the bread sliced with baking or greaseproof paper between the slices. This prevents the pieces from sticking to each other and allows you to defrost only the amount of bread you need. You can use, for example, a toaster to defrost the slices.
Get your scorched pans clean
Save the coffee grounds and use them to rub the bottom of a scorched pan. Once the crust has lifted, wash the pan normally. You can also try vinegar and water: boil 2 parts of vinegar and 1 part of water in the pan, add a tablespoon of salt and let the solution stand overnight in the pan – please note that this piece of advice is not suitable for aluminium pots.
Getting your thermos bottles and vases clean
The easiest way to clean thermos bottles, vases and other narrow, hard-to-clean dishes is to mix crushed eggshells to soapy water and to shake them in the dish until it comes clean.
Getting floor drains clean with a sizzle
An efficient way to clean floor drains: pour ½–1 dl of baking soda and 1–2 dl of spirit vinegar into a floor drain. When the sizzling stops, run a couple of litres of hot water into the drain.
Durable, washable cleaning rags
You can crochet your cleaning rags – washable and reusable cleaning rags replace disposable versions. Crochet the cleaning rags from medium-strength knitting or crochet yarn made of cotton or cotton mix. Easy instructions on how to crochet cleaning rags can be found on the internet.
Make a toilet cleaning muffin for a gift, for example
Mix 3 dl of baking soda and 1.5 dl of citric acid. Put 3 tablespoons of dishwasher detergent in another dish, add 20 drops of essential peppermint oil and mix. Add the detergent mixture to the dry ingredients. Mould the mixture into balls and place them in muffin cups for 24 hours. Once ready, store the cleaning muffins in a sealed container. When you are cleaning the house, you can drop one cleaning muffin into the toilet bowl and let it sizzle. Afterwards, just brush the bowl and flush it clean.
Make your own plant nutrient
Collect coffee grinds to be used as plant nutrient – use them as such or mix them with soil. Plans that thrive in acidic soil in particular, such as roses, rhododendrons, highbush blueberries, magnolias and hydrangeas, like coffee grinds.
Own lime mine
Do not throw the eggshells away. After drying, you can crush the shells, for example, in a mortar and use the powder as plant nutrient. Crushed eggshells release calcium into the soil.
Keep animals away from flower soil
Scatter the flower soil with coffee grounds and orange or lemon peel. Pets and insects do not usually like acidity or the smell of citrus. Many pests also have an aversion to eggshells crushed on top of the soil.
Tips for a more responsible Christmas
Tips for a more responsible Christmas
Tips for a more responsible Christmas
Christmas is a joyous holiday, worth celebrating with a touch of responsibility. When preparing for and celebrating Christmas, you can easily reduce waste and save energy. In the following, some tips for the Christmas home:
Christmas gifts and Christmas cards
- Ask the gift recipient what he or she wants for Christmas – buy only what is necessary. When making gift purchases, favour accountability, and make discoveries at recycling centres and flea markets.
- Wrap your gifts in imaginative ways and use existing materials such as magazine pages or beautiful fabrics.
- Save the Christmas gift wrappings, bags and strings – they will work well the next Christmas. (Please remember that gift wrapping paper does not belong to recycled paper collection but to energy/mixed waste.)
- Buy, give and wish for intangible gifts, such as experiences, services, time and high spirits. You can find great gift ideas on the Buy, give and wish for intangible gifts, such as experiences, services, time and high spirits. You can find great gift ideas on the Annajotainmuuta website.
- Cut out and save the picture pages of folded Christmas cards and use them for Christmas and package cards the next Christmas
At the Christmas table
- Plan your meals with love, but in moderation. If you serve a variety of dishes, the quantities may then be smaller.
- Favour domestic Christmas dishes, enjoy vegetarian dishes and feast on meat dishes in moderate amounts.
- Enjoy your Christmas delicacies using non-disposable tableware.
- The leftover Christmas food is ideal for making many new, tasty dishes – this also helps you reduce food waste
- The waste ham cooking fat is future diesel fuel. Therefore, save the waste cooking fat of ham and other Christmas dishes and take it to a Kinkkutemppu (Ham Trick) collection point. (Please remember that the waste cooking fat must not be poured into the drain.)
Saving electricity
- In your Christmas lighting, favour LED lights, use plug-in Christmas lights instead of battery powered lights
- Do not wait too long before going to Christmas sauna, but take the sauna as soon as it has warmed up.